Europa League: Van Bronckhorst Wins First Game At Rangers vs Sparta Prague

Giovanni van Bronckhorst got off to a perfect start as Rangers manager with a 2-0 win over Sparta Prague securing their place in the last 32 of the Europa League. Leicester also edged towards the knockout stages with a 3-1 win over Legia Warsaw.

But Celtic's chances of progress were ended by a late Bayer Leverkusen rally from 2-1 down to win 3-2 in Germany.

Real Betis, Lazio, Monaco, Galatasaray and Olympiakos also qualified for the knockout stages on Thursday.

Van Bronckhorst watched on from the stands as Rangers suffered a shock 3-1 defeat to Hibernian in Sunday's Scottish League Cup semifinal.

But in his first match since formally succeeding Steven Gerrard, Rangers got the two-goal victory they needed to guarantee second place in Group A thanks to early goals in both halves from Alfredo Morelos.

Leicester will travel to Napoli in two weeks' time knowing a point will be enough to progress after a first-half blitz of Legia.

Patson Daka, James Maddison and Wilfried Ndidi all scored inside 33 minutes against the Polish champions to jump from bottom of the group before kick-off to top.

All four sides still have the chance to qualify in the final games of the group as the Foxes lead Napoli and Spartak Moscow by a point with Legia one point further back.